The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.

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Thursday, January 26, 2017

Hamas procures NKorean laser-guided missiles - debkaFile

by debkaFile

debkafile’s
intelligence sources reveal that for the past three weeks, consignments
of North Korean Bulsae-2- anti-tank missile have been flowing in from
Libya through Sinai and the new tunnels into the hands of Hamas’ armed
wing in the Gaza Strip.

Israelis tend to get carried away by endless post mortems on
long-past battles. A press leak Tuesday, Jan. 24, from a closed security
cabinet war conference, that took place during the last anti-terror
operation “Defensive Edge” in 2014 against Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, has
resurrected old charges that the Netanyahu government had failed to
appreciate the perils of Hamas’ terror tunnels.
That leak revealed Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the
Jewish Home party, as having pushed with all his might for a proactive
response to the Palestinian Hamas’ tunnels, whereas Moshe Ya’alon, then
Defense Minister, urged restraint, backed by Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu. For Bennett this leak represented big political kudos.

Subsequent events revealed that the prime minister was already
thinking ahead and striving to end the operation in a manner that would
not prejudice the close ties he was fostering with Egyptian President
Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi. The hawkish Bennett was more preoccuped with the
security situation of here and now.
But, as debkafile
notes here, the argument’s flare-up has distracted Israel’s politicians
and media from a more immediate peril emanating from a contemporary
version of Hamas’ tunnels, which neither Israel nor Egypt has been able
to overcome: the arms smuggling tunnels between Sinai and the Gaza Strip
and their hub, the town of Rafah, which is divided between Egyptian
Sinai and Hamas’ Gaza.debkafile’s
intelligence sources reveal that for the past three weeks, consignments
of North Korean Bulsae-2- anti-tank missile have been flowing in from
Libya through Sinai and the new tunnels into the hands of Hamas’ armed
wing in the Gaza Strip.

Bulsae-2 is North Korea’s reverse-engineered version of the old
Soviet anti-tank missile called 9K111 Fagot, which uses a so-called
wired semi-automatic command to line of sight system. The guidance box
mounted on the launcher tracks the missile in flight via an infrared
sensor and correct its trajectory by sending signals through a wire
reeled out behind it.

A laser-guided system used in anti-tank missiles has a different
approach. The launcher is equipped with a laser designator, which aims a
laser beam at the target, a system widely adopted in the 1980s. The
missile has a rear-facing sensor that picks up the beam and makes the
missile ride along it. Laser-guided anti-tank missiles have greater
range compared to wire-guided ones. Fagot’s range is 2.5km, compared to
5.5km for the 9M133 Kornet, a modern laser-guided anti-tank missile
developed by Russia. They are also not vulnerable to radio jamming,
unlike missiles that use radio instead of wires.
Hamas already possessed this laser-guided missile in the 2014 conflict,
but in very small numbers. To date, the terrorist group is estimated to
have procured 1,500 Bulsae-2 missiles. This would be enough in the event
of another war with Israel to lay down a dense laser-guided anti-tank
screen against IDF tanks and armored personnel carriers.

Hamas personnel have been sighted training in multiple launches of
the North Korean anti-tank weapons. Although the Egyptian air force
conducts strikes against the Hamas underground passages passing through
Rafah, the traffic carries on without pause. Hamas has sunk four or five
tunnels as decoys for the one that is in actual use.

debkaFileSource: http://debka.com/article/25899/Hamas-procures-NKorean-laser-guided-missiles Follow Middle East and Terrorism on TwitterCopyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.